Happy New Year

Well, we certainly didn't mean to go this long without an update, but the month of December kept us pretty otherwise occupied. Colds lingered for all three of us, and we are only now all starting to feel ourselves again. We didn't let that stop us, though, from having an amazing Advent. Annie put such energy and excitement into every aspect, she loved Christmas cookies, and all sorts of Christmas decorations. She played endlessly with her new nativity set, growing quite attached to Baby Jesus, and especially enjoying having his mother "rock" him to sleep. She loved listening to Christmas music, and reading stories about Christmas. As we lit Advent candles each week and sang our Advent song, she eagerly pointed to the Christ candle, and was always ready to sing "Happy Birthday" to Baby Jesus.
We enjoyed numerous gatherings with friends and family, and in the midst of it all, were getting ready for:

PLANES, TRAINS and AUTOMOBILES
(otherwise known as Christmas in Bavaria)

A week before Christmas, we met Jenia's parents in Atlanta, and then all flew to Munich, Germany to spend a couple of weeks with Uncle John, Aunt Tonia (or "Nona" as Annie took to calling her), and Tonia's family. Annie was a splendid little traveler from the beginning. As we talked about the plane ride, she was so excited about going "up, up, up" and eating and drinking on the plane (why the eating and drinking became a source of such fascination, I have no idea). We spent our first couple of days in Salzburg, Austria. Our train ride from Munich to Salzburg (while a bit crazy with all of our luggage) was a treat--we past through beautiful forests covered in snow, and generally enjoyed watching all the little towns pass). In Salzburg, we enjoyed checking out the Christmas markets, the Old Town, and Eric and Grandpa enjoyed walking up to the castle. By the time we met up with John and Tonia on Sunday morning, we were beginning to feel like we were in the right time zone, and were eager to see them and Tonia's family. They were wonderful hosts and we enjoyed our stay with them (in a small village about an hour and a half outside of Munich) immensely. Here is Annie participating in a common late night activity, playing Guitar Hero with Tonia's sister and others...

We spent some time in Munich with John and Tonia as tour guides. It was great to see places that were memorable to them, and to get to see a pretty amazing city. This is on the roof of John's apartment building when he first moved to Munich, and offered a great view of the city, in particular of the Olympic Park (from the '72 Olympics), it also allowed for some creative moves led by Annie.

We stopped in at the new BMW World, a building that showcases modern BMW technology, and that was under construction when John was interning there. Annie's favorite part was looking at the motorcycles, and she had to try everyone!

In Germany, there are three days of Christmas celebrations--the 24th through the 26th--some businesses are open on the morning of the 24th, but for the next two and a half days, everyone is on holiday. We enjoyed a beautiful Christmas Eve service (there is something very right about singing Silent Night in a small Bavarian church by candlelight), wonderful holiday meals, and especially delighted in sharing traditions and gifts with each other. Annie was so tickled by it all, and learned very quickly to say "danka" ("thank you") to everyone! We missed being with relatives in Minnesota and Arizona, but will treasure the opportunity to spend Christmas with Tonia and John in Tonia's home.


The week after Christmas, we made the most of our time in seeing glimpses of Bavaria. John and Tonia had rented a car (a Eurovan, which my parents were especially delighted to ride in again as they miss theirs very much) and drove all over...Annie loved telling John to "go, go, go" on the Autobahn (he was pretty willing to comply at speeds that were impressive!). We visited castles and churches, rode gondolas up the Alps (the picture at the top of this section is where we ate lunch--you could see peaks in Switzerland, Italy, and Austria from our German perch!), explored old towns, and had wonderful time with Tonia's family. Annie quickly bonded with all of them, and impressed us all by mastering their names, and generally settling right in. It was hard to say goodbye, especially to John and Tonia, and Annie has spent a lot of the last few days talking about them.



HOME AGAIN
We arrived home on the first, and celebrated Christmas with Eric's family over the next couple of days. It's been amazing to think of Annie's growth--physically, emotionally, mentally--over the last year, and even over the last month. In the last few weeks, her verbal skills have exploded, not only does she seem able to name just about anything, she's stringing things together into little sentences, singing songs, counting...Her imaginative play is pretty incredible, and seems older and older. She's got an incredible memory, and tells us stories of things that have happened weeks ago (our listening skills are definitely being sharpened as we try and follow everything). All in all she seems more like a little girl every day, and that's a precious--if a bit bittersweet--thing to watch.




This is, of course, just a glimpse of the pictures from our last month, and we will probably be posting some more (especially from our trip) in the future...We are hopeful that this year will hold more peace, continued wonder, and joy for everyone!!

We ate. And, ate. And, coughed.

Thanksgiving week began with dinner with friends. Here are Annie and Kyle ready and waiting to eat. She especially enjoyed cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie.


After dinner, she enjoyed playing with all the other kids--we've added a few since last year--and with parents, too.


One of her favorite things to do at Brett and Emily's (who hosted dinner), is to go "up, up" to Ella's room to ride her rocking horse. When we get anywhere close to their house, we hear "Ella" and "neigh" over and over again.


Our next Thanksgiving meal was on Tuesday with Eric's grandmother. We had Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Annie had fun sitting in the sun room's furniture and doing a far amount of rearranging of the cushions.


Wednesday evening, Eric's brother Jeff, his wife Dee, and daughter Emily arrived for the weekend. Grandma Barb joined us for Thanksgiving meal #3. Annie was very excited to play with everyone, especially with cousin Emily. When Emily would leave the room, she would follow calling "Emily, Emily" and she wanted Emily to be the one to hand her things at dinner. Unfortunately, this is when Eric and Annie started coughing.


Thursday, we had a pretty low key morning. We had breakfast with Jeff, Dee, and Emily before they headed over to Eric's dad (Papa)'s. Then Annie and Eric just rested, trying to keep their coughs from getting the better of them. We went over to Papa and Nana's, where Annie and Eric napped till dinner time, enjoyed a tasty dinner, some games of Apples to Apples, and returned home pretty early as the coughing continued.


Friday, Eric and Annie continued to feel pretty miserable. They've spent a lot of time together this weekend, sleeping, cuddling, coughing, resting, drinking water and coughing some more. We did venture out to Eric's mom's for one last Thanksgiving meal. Annie again enjoyed her time with cousin Emily especially, and they played for quite awhile with Grandma Barb's kitchen, serving up a delightful tea party.


On the way home Friday evening, Annie was mesmerized by the Christmas ("ho, ho, ho") lights, and as we've set up Christmas decorations the rest of the weekend (that was pretty much all we could manage to accomplish with Eric and Annie feeling sick) she's been so engaged in everything. We've added words to our vocabulary like "snowman," "advent," enjoyed singing/playing Christmas Carols (particularly German ones to prepare for our Christmas in Bavaria), and Annie's had fun hanging up Christmas ornaments all over the house.

We were sad to have Eric and Annie not feeling better this weekend, but we've also appreciated some extended time together at home. As we head into December, it's quite clear there won't be many days when we can just all be together and not running all over the place, so we are thankful for that, as thankful as we are for all the craziness and time with friends and family over the holidays.

Happy Advent!

And, so, it begins...

Today, Annie and I went with friends Ella and Emily to see the Macy's 8th Floor Display downtown. Each year, they have an elaborate holiday animatronics display, and this year's theme was "A Day in the Life of the Elf." Annie attended last year and was mildly entertained, but this year she was transfixed by it all. She stared and stared, pointed, gave Mrs. Claus a "high five" then quickly said "bye-bye" so she could move on to look at the singing Christmas Trees; all-in-all, her reaction made me quite excited for all the ensuing holiday activities, what a fun year it will be to watch it through her eyes! So, this morning's outing makes me feel as if the holidays are upon us. This weekend we will celebrate Thanksgiving with friends, then will have a number of Thanksgiving celebrations with Eric's family over the course of the week, then Advent begins, and December arrives!!

Annie's very excited about snow, unfortunately nothing has stuck for any length of time yet, but she loves trying out her coat and boots (sometimes while trying out other things!).


We enjoyed celebrating Eric's mom birthday with her a couple of weekends ago. Annie, as usual, enjoyed being silly with Daddy and it was a special treat to share that with Grandma Barb.



One of Annie's favorite new places to sit is the magazine basket, it actually looks quite comfortable for someone her size. She especially enjoys having a "bum" (cereal bar--perhaps she's combining the word bar and yum?) in this basket.


I'm mainly including this next photo to show how long her hair is getting, she's yet to have a hair cut as I really don't want to lose those sweet baby curls in the back! She's posing with one of her many stuffed animals. I keep thinking I need to put some of them away, but she is continues to be very deliberate in dividing her time amongst them all and each seems to have a special place in her play that I can't bring myself to do it...



As it gets darker (now around 4:30, yikes) I start to hear Annie chanting "Daddy, Daddy" more and more. She loves when he arrives home, and typically enjoys some exceptionally goofy time with him as we get dinner going.

It's surely November...

Annie had the thrill yesterday morning of watching the street sweepers go back and forth and back and forth cleaning the leaves of the street. They are now filled again (as is our yard which has been racked countless times!, our tree shows no sign of being done).

This morning we walked to our polling place (it's unseasonably warm, so we thought we should enjoy it!) to vote this morning and were impressed that even at an off-time like 9:45, there was a line to vote!

Over the weekend, we took Annie to REI to get her outfitted for snow. She's a big fan of the snow pants, coat, and boots, and was quite content to walk around the store in them. It'll be fun to have her experience winter in a whole new way this year. We've been looking at lots of pictures of snow men.

Each day our mail is filled with holiday catalogs. Annie is quite discerning and only bothers herself to look through ones that have toys, and those she will page through again and again. Yesterday, she found a page that had a little percussion set on it, complete with maracas. She has her own maraca, and wanted to get it. We dug through the toy basket found it, shook it, she set it near the magazine, but she wasn't done yet. She decided she needed to share this find with one of her dolls, who she retrieved from her room, plopped directly on top of the picture of the maraca, then proceeded to shake hers with great satisfaction. It's amazing how many things set off triggers in her mind now, and exciting to see how she can process information and make connections so easily.

We spent our last week of October in Phoenix. We very much enjoyed time with family, and seeing some friends, too! Unfortunately, I spent the latter part of the trip with a cold I'd inherited from Annie, so I didn't do quite as much as I'd hoped, but we made the best of it! Annie loved spending time with Grandma and Grandpa, from going with Grandpa to get the newspaper in the morning, to watching Grandma blow dry her hair, to mowing their lawn (this is one of her favorite activities). She impressed them with her ever-improving (and unnerving me) climbing skills, and had fun sharing all of her new developments with them. She also enjoyed getting time with cousins Elliott and Kate (and their parents!), it's incredible to see how differently (and more elaborately) they interact each time we're together.







We celebrated Halloween with the Arizona Family on Wednesday evening, all dressed in costumes! Then, we celebrated when we returned home (on Halloween evening!) with pizza, a visit from Papa and Nana, and a trip (in costume, of course) to just two neighbors. Annie got a big kick out of all the trick or treaters (we had at least 80!) and only seemed to be upset by one of the costumes: a four year old dressed up as a football player. We were glad we were still on Arizona time, otherwise, Annie would have missed much of the excitement!



We're sad to see warmth go, but are excited that November is here. We're looking forward to lots of baking, to lots of celebrations with friends and families, to the holidays!!

A Fun Autumn Weekend

This past weekend was a great mix of relaxed time together and little adventures out. On Friday, Annie and I joined our friends Emily and Ella for a trip to the University of Minnesota's Landscape Arboretum. It was beautiful (and we only saw a very little bit of it). Annie's favorite parts were the fountain, the painted leaves on the Kids' Path, and all the pumpkins and scarecrows. Today at lunch she was talking about the scarecrow that was riding the bike, again, and again, and again.

On Saturday afternoon, we met up with Annie's friends Lily and Ella (and our friends--their parents) for a trip to a pumpkin patch. We've gone a number of times together without kids, but this was the first time that the girls joined us...it made the petting zoo a FAR bigger deal!

After getting our fill of farm animals, we headed out to the pumpkin patch and found some pumpkins, played in corn fields, and took lots of pictures. Annie enjoyed visiting the barn and silo afterwards, both filled with pumpkins and hay bales (and more scarecrows, one of Annie's new loves!).


On Sunday, we enjoyed time relaxing together. Eric and Annie did a lot of raking, and Annie helped make sure our Obama sign was straight! Sunday evening, Eric's mom came over for dinner and then watched Annie while Eric and I went to a Peter, Paul, and Mary concert. It was pretty incredible to hear them, and to hear stories of their last almost 50 years together.

Annie also continues to work on her fashion sense, on Monday she couldn't decide if it was wintertime or summertime, so decided to try both her swimsuit and winter cap. She has definite opinions on all factors of life, and it's fun (and, yes, sometimes a bit of a challenge) to watch her learn to express those!

Finally, Annie is a big fan of trains, in particular with "Tootle" from the golden book "Tootle the Train." She often asks to read that before nap or bedtime. Today, after already having read another book before nap time, she asked for Tootle. Usually we only read one book before nap time, but she was insistent, and I relented. It turned out she didn't want to read to Tootle, she wanted to cuddle it to sleep (as well as you can cuddle a book), and she did--she fell asleep clutching it.

A Busy Month

In the month since we've blogged, we've welcomed autumn at full force, Annie turned 18 months, we had visitors from Arizona and South Dakota, and we've generally enjoyed life with an increasingly verbal, speedy, dynamic little girl. Work for Eric is beginning to settle down as everybody in the college moves into their school year routine (we enjoy having him for a bit longer in the mornings!). As we begin thinking of all the festivities of autumn and winter, we are quite excited to have Annie participate more and more fully in our daily and seasonal celebrations. There is, of course, a lot more that I could say about activities and developments for Annie the past month, but I think we'll let the picture do most of the talking!

Annie is enjoying picking out her clothes and playing dress-up. Shoes are her favorite accessory, and she makes sure that all three of us have shoes that she thinks work for the day.


Our Arizona visitors were my sister and her family. One of our first adventures with them was to head to Apple-Cider-Cheese-Fudge (otherwise known as Fireside Orchards).

After checking out the pumpkins, we enjoyed tasty donuts and apple cider,

picking apples (which we've very much enjoyed baking with),

enjoying the scenery--Elliott and Annie were especially appreciative of the pond--

Elliott and Annie also got a big kick out of ringing the bell,

and, singing "Twinkle, Twinkle" and dancing.

The next day, we headed to the zoo. It was a beautiful, sunny day!

We started at the Russia's Grizzly Coast exhibit, where we spent a significant amount of time watching the otters play.

While mornings were filled with outings, after nap time we enjoyed just playing around the house and nearby. Here are Annie and Kate having some silly time together.

We were quite happy to see the three cousins playing so well together!

Part way through the visit, Elliott and Kate's Grandma Kathy joined us from South Dakota. The adults enjoyed her company and help, and the kids all enjoyed playtime and story time with her.

We made good use of the beautiful fall weather to visit a variety of nearby parks. Annie is now determined to always go on the "big kid" slides at parks, she's becoming quite adept at the ladders going "up, up, up" and with keeping her balance on the way down "weeee...".

We very much enjoyed having them all in town!